Good reply Chistopher , fits right in the slot after my experience yesterday , On Friday mornings , i donate my time to a group called Communify , They have a music group for people with difficulties , both physical and mental , it takes their mind of their problems for a few hours at least . We put this little number called " IT'S A NEW DAY" , its in Bm , capo 2 , so C major or Am open patterns work over it , after the second verse there is a bridge where the dynamics drop off and then build again to the last verse . Now we have this girl called Doodie ( real name is Judy ) and she finger picked the bridge on her nylon stringed Ibanez Classical and it sounded really good .Now Doodie is good with all the open chords and most bar chords and when she warms up she always plays some finger picking classical and is quite good at it . While we were having a break , Dan ( the music co- ordinator ) told her he liked what she played over the bridge and asked if she had any teachers . Her reply was that she had been playing for 15 years and had 4 teachers during that time . She then looked straight at me and said " do you need to know scales to play lead ? " . Dan's jaw almost landed in his lap and I almost fell of my chair . Obviously , these teachers had taught her to play this classical stuff note for note and never explained scales on why certain notes work for certain chord changes . When I mentioned learning pentatonics , I got a dumbfounded expression. What i'm trying to get across is that Christopher's answer explains it from 2 different aspects , whereas some teachers don't address it at all.